Know Thyself

I realized early on that I had no idea who I was. It was like there was my body, and then there was my soul that felt the effects of what happened to my body. And to survive the ordeals I was going through, I needed to keep them separate (which probably saved my life).

But years passed and when I was living a safe life, I never fused the two back together. I think I was afraid for that to happen. In my mind, my soul was something like Frankenstein's monster. 

I thought I could outrun it, my soul.The farther the better. I thought that I already had the answers to who I was: an adventurer, a thrill seeker, a total adrenaline junkie. But you know who you're supposed to be. Everyone does. Deep down, you know. And ignoring that will consume you. Like a fool, I searched everywhere for it. But the graffiti of country stamps on my passport did not help me find what I was looking for. It only made me aware of how lost I was.  

I thought the more time I spent away, I would find myself. I thought that if I traveled, if I saw something that beautiful like the Taj Mahal, if I could just be close to greatness, I would finally reach self actualization.  

Most of my twenties was spent like that. Lost. And I was ashamed for having that weird anti climactic feeling as I lived my life. Who was I to wonder, Is that all there is?

 I knew other people suffered. Who was I to ask for more? Just go with the flow and work hard. To achieve what? Who knows. Just work. So I became this person who spent money trying to fill the void, pushing myself to be the best at things I didn't care about, and caught in a never ending rat race that made me forget that time is the most precious thing we have on this earth. 

The breakdown was in the cards. Of course, it was. The eruption of anxiety and fear that descended on me was so thick that I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function. I quite simply, logged off my life. And for two months, I was a shell, a body with no soul. I was convinced it had left me, probably tired of being ignored. 

The struggle to get it back has been painful. That was probably deserved. It could be stubborn too. 

Do you want to know how to meet your soul?

You don't have to pay for a plane ticket to go to the Golden Temple. Or charter a plane to some secluded island resort in the South China Sea untouched by civilization. Or walk through the ancient bamboo trees in Kyoto.

You sit your ass down. You close your eyes. You breathe. You try your best to ignore the neurotic thoughts and you stay still. I don't mean just physically, I mean mentally. You become still. 

And you breathe through your nose. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.  (By the way, meditating is effing hard. More often than not, you feel like you didn't accomplish diddly squat. You actually feel worse after the first weeks you do it. It's a muscle you have to build. Whoever tells you otherwise is not doing it right.)  

Took a couple of days. Hell who am I kidding?  Weeks. Practically two months. I would wake up, stretch, sit my ass down and breathe and try to cross the street in the busy highway of my mind. 

My soul came to me one day, in a moment of serene clarity that lasted maybe five seconds. But wow, what seconds they were!

It wasn't the monster I thought it would be. It was me as a little girl, around the age of 7. She looked haggard, wearing a shirt with holes in it, dirty shorts, and scabbed knees. Quiet and shy, she whispered the uncomfortable truths I thought I could run from. 

She asked me to forgive myself. She asked me to be brave. She asked me to trust her. All very simple things, I know, but her requests made me weep. 

I haven't met her since. (Probably because I haven't meditated in a few weeks. I gotta get back to it, I know.) But I've been trying to do what she asked of me. And that need to escape my life has gone away. I'm not running  anymore. 

I'm on the right path now.